Euclid Avenue (IND Fulton Street Line) (mtamaster edition)
Euclid Avenue is an express station on the IND Fulton Street Line of the New York City Subway, located at the intersection of Euclid and Pitkin Avenues in East New York, Brooklyn. It is served by the A''', '''C, and T''' trains at all times. During late nights, this is the northern terminal for the '''C train. History Euclid Avenue was part of a four-station extension of the Fulton Street subway along Pitkin Avenue, past its original planned terminus at Broadway–East New York. Construction of the extension began in 1938, with construction on the section of the line between Crystal Street and Grant Avenue that included the Euclid Avenue station and the Pitkin Yard beginning in late 1940. Construction of the station was halted in December 1942, and the station remained an incomplete shell during World War II that could not be finished because of material shortages from the war effort. At the time, the station was over 95 percent complete. Construction resumed on the extension in November 1946. The delay meant the station received different design features than the rest of the stations along the line, including a slightly different tile job, fluorescent lighting instead of then-standard incandescent lights, and improved restroom and phone booth facilities. The station also featured modern interlocking technology, known as the "NX" system. After several test runs, the station opened to the public in the early morning of November 28, 1948. It became the new terminal of the Fulton Street Line, replacing the former terminal at Broadway–East New York (now Broadway Junction). It later became the replacement for the elevated BMT Fulton Street Line's Chestnut Street and Crescent Street stations, which closed on April 26, 1956 when the connection to the eastern Fulton elevated was opened. The next station east (railroad south) for IND Fulton Street service is Grant Avenue, located in City Line, Brooklyn. However, an unfinished station is rumored to exist at 76th Street in nearby Ozone Park, Queens, just four blocks east of Grant Avenue. The track work is quite complex there, allowing trains to enter the Pitkin Yard from both the express and local tracks (where C trains relay to get from the southbound to the northbound local track), and with connections to the two-track Grant Avenue station from both the express and local tracks; the Grant Avenue spur then veers northeast towards Liberty Avenue. All four mainline tracks continue below the Grant Avenue connection, used only to store trains, east under Pitkin Avenue until approximately Eldert Lane (just south of the Grant Avenue station). It was planned that these tracks would continue under Pitkin Avenue to Cross Bay Boulevard, as part of a never-built system expansion which would have extended the Fulton Street Subway to the Rockaways and to Cambria Heights near the Queens-Nassau County border. On the electric light signal board in the control room at Euclid Avenue, there is a taped-over section of the board that hides the 76th Street station. There are also two tracks coming from the Pitkin Yard heading towards the planned 76th Street station site. These tracks would have merged with the mainline tracks just before 76th Street station. When Pitkin Yard originally opened, the yard leads toward 76th Street were usable to relay short trains on. Today, those two tracks are no longer connected via switches. Parts of the trackways still exist, but the switches were removed and the tunnel ends in a cinderblock wall. As late as 1951, the mainline and relay tracks were still planned to be extended as far as 105th Street (the modern location of Aqueduct Racetrack), with a connection to the then-recently abandoned Rockaway Beach Branch of the Long Island Rail Road east of Cross Bay Boulevard. The extension of the subway, however, was never built; instead the line was connected to the former Fulton Street elevated on Liberty Avenue and the former LIRR Rockaway branch (now the IND Rockaway Line), both via the Grant Avenue station opened in 1956. In the mid-2000s, an elevator to the street and elevators between the mezzanine and each platform were installed, making the station ADA-accessible. Station layout This station has four tracks and two island platforms, and is the geographically easternmost (railroad southern) express station on the IND Fulton Street Line. It has the same 10" × 5" eggshell-beige wall tile as the next three stations west (railroad north), in contrast to typical IND white square tiles. The tile band, however, is a delicate shade of lilac with a violet border, similar to Delancey Street in Manhattan. The I-beams are tiled with color bands and mini-vertical name tablets reading "Euclid," along with the two-tone border motif. The I-beams are in pairs at the center of the platforms; towards each end the platforms narrow and there is a single row of these I-beams. A crew quarters room is over the railroad south end of both platforms. The station has a crossover in the mezzanine along with an active newsstand and elevators to both platforms. The station has a control tower at the eastern end of the southbound platform, which monitors trains between Broadway Junction and the station, and controls the interlockings east of Euclid Avenue. The tower was the first in the subway system to use the "NX" or "Entrance-Exit" system. In this system, the tower utilizes a 12-foot (3.7 m) wide, 3.3-foot (1.0 m) tall electric light signal board which features a diagram of the nearby stations and track layout. It operates on direct current and consists of simple knobs and push buttons to control track switches, as opposed to the previous system which ran on alternating current and required a complicated series of levers. Exits/Entrances Stairways are present from each platform to the mezzanine above the tracks. Fare control is located in the mezzanine. Outside fare control is a street elevator leading to the northeast corner of Pitkin and Euclid Avenues. Street stairs also lead to all four corners of the intersection.